


From Gold

by exyking



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Basically Laurent has to go back to Vere and they're naturally both quite upset about this, Brief mentions of grief, Laurent talks about Auguste, M/M, i have no idea how to tag this, so they have very emotional sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 23:04:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10672629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exyking/pseuds/exyking
Summary: There were so many different versions of how their story could have gone. Damen thought, none of them would have led him here. None of them would have given him this.





	From Gold

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly wasn't ever planning on posting this, because it was meant to be the second chapter of that 'My Doomed Elysian' rewrite I talked about, but I could never work out the story that I wanted to tell, and never felt like I could do it justice, so I abandoned the project to work on that stripper fic i mentioned the other day. I don't know if I'll ever come back to it, or if it will ever be finished, but I really loved this chapter, and I think it works well by itself, so I thought I might post it anyway.
> 
> For a bit of context: the Summer Palace never technically happened in this timeline, Laurent stays with Damen in Ios for as long as he possibly can until he has to return to Vere and reclaim his crown. This assumes they'll be working separately to restore peace to their kingdoms as they figure out a way to formally unite their nations, allowing them to remain together permanently. It's basically the separation that has to eventually happen, so there's plenty of angst. And smut. Obviously.

“Will there be anything else, Exalted?”

“No, thank you. You may leave us.”

The servant bowed low and retreated, closing the door behind him with a gentle click. With his departure, they were left alone.

The windows were open to allow the cool autumn breeze to blow into the room, where it caught on the sheer silk curtains and stirred them gently. Damen peered through them to the man standing on the balcony, his hands resting on the balustrade as he peered out into the night lit by the half-moon. Damen heard the faint sounds of the city below, drifting up to the palace with the wind, busy and raucous in the lateness of the evening. He saw the stars above them, twinkling brilliantly in the sky, like slivers of diamond nesting in black velvet; precious, indifferent, and eternal.

“I remember the first time I laid eyes on you,” he said, leaning on the archway and crossing his arms over his chest.

He watched as Laurent turned around, and his breath caught in his throat as he looked at him. His hair shone brilliantly in the moonlight, pale yellow like soft butter, contrasting the brilliant cerulean blue of his eyes. His pink lips were stretched in the ghost of a smile, and shadows played across his face, highlighting the aristocratic slant of his high cheekbones, the softest dimples hiding beneath them, the sculpted marble of his jawline. He leant back against the banister and raised a delicately arched eyebrow.

“I thought you were the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life,” Damen said. “I also thought you were a spoiled, self-serving, aristocratic brat.”

Laurent’s smile . “Forgive me if I don’t swoon.”

“You have changed everything,” Damen went on. “My wishes and desires, the very course of my life. Everything.”

“Having last minute regrets?”

Damen pushed off the archway and strode the distance between them in a handful of steps. He paused before Laurent, reaching up to run the tips of his fingers over blond hair.

“Never.”

Laurent studied him, tilted his head. “None at all? Your brother, your father, the indignity of enslavement. You regret none of it?”

Damen was silent for a moment, thumbing the lock of hair that ran over Laurent’s shoulder like a strand of yellow silk, or a rivulet of gold. “There is much that I wish could have been different. But if the price of altering the pain of the past would be to lose this, I…” He couldn’t finish.

What would he do, truly, given the chance to go back to the very beginning and change it all? To take back the stroke of the sword that had robbed Auguste of his life and set into motion the chain of events that would leave Laurent at the mercy of his uncle for all those years. To stop the Delphan war before it had begun, so that those princes might never have had the chance to meet on that fated field of battle. Auguste would have been king, and Laurent likely his closest advisor, prince of the Veretian realm. The Regent either alive and festering in some corner of their kingdom, or dead and forgotten for his perverse crimes. Auguste would never have let him touch Laurent, Damen knew that beyond doubt.

And Damen? Perhaps his father would still be alive, or perhaps he himself would be king. Or, likelier, he would be dead. Little would have changed the nature of Kastor’s heart. Had the Regent still seduced him into betrayal, had he found the courage to move against him on his own, would Damen have survived it at all? Certainly, he would never have met Laurent.

There were so many different versions of how their story could have gone. Damen thought, none of them would have led him here. None of them would have given him this.

When Damen did not speak again, Laurent laid a pale hand over his, pressing it flat against his chest where he had been playing with his hair, over his steadily beating heart. “I have lost everything,” he said, “but I have gained this. You.

Damen closed his eyes. “There is so much grief, between us. So much pain that we have caused each other. How can you not hate me, still, for what I have done?”

“Would you hate me for the same? I flayed your back, I kept you in chains. I killed your brother.”

“No. I understand it, now.”

“Then what makes you think I am capable of any less?”

“It is different,” Damen insisted.

“It is not.”

Damen opened his eyes and looked down at Laurent. Laurent looked back at him.

“You are leaving in the morning,” Damen said. “You are going back to Vere, to become King. Say it.”

“I’m leaving in the morning,” Laurent said, an echo of the words that once he had made Damen say, in his chambers at Ravenel, before everything had changed. “I’m going back to Vere. I’m going to become king.”

Damen brushed a strand of hair behind Laurent’s ear. “I’m going to miss you,”

Laurent’s jaw clenched. “Damen—”

“I love you,” Damen said. He realized it was the first time he had said it.

Laurent closed his eyes, the only betrayal of response. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I won’t be able to leave.”

Damen smiled, and his heart throbbed in his chest. “You could stay. You could become king by my side.”

“One day,” Laurent promised. “I meant what I said.”

Damen nodded, clinging to the promise like it was salvation, like it could soothe the ache in his chest that came from the thought of being without him. He stepped closer, so Laurent had to crane his neck to look at him. Their chests were almost touching, and Damen moved the hand that had pressed against Laurent’s heart up to cradle his jaw. He ran his thumb gently along Laurent’s cheekbone, marveling at the softness of his skin, while his other hand trailed down Laurent’s arm to encircle his wrist.

“You still wear it,” he said.

“Of course.”

“You will wear it even in Arles? You know what they will say.”

“I don’t care what they will say.”

“They will say that you bend for Akielos, that the king put his slave gold on you and you wear it with pride.”

“They could say worse and I would not take it off.”

Damen smiled, the smallest upturn of his mouth, and bowed his head to place a gentle kiss on Laurent’s brow. Laurent made a small noise and leaned into him, pressing his forehead to Damen’s broad chest and unabashedly wrapping his arms around his waist, drawing him closer.

“Sentiment?” Damen asked.

“Something like that.”

He chuckled, and felt Laurent’s smile against his skin, before falling into silence. They held each other, standing out on the balcony beneath the night sky and all its twinkling stars. Damen thought; he had had this only briefly, but he did not know how he was going to live without it.

“I’m going to miss you, too,” Laurent said, little more than a whisper, an echo of Damen’s thoughts.

Damen held him tighter. “I know,” he said.

For a wistful moment, Damen wished time would stop around them, that this night might go on forever so that they need never be parted. A moment of perfect happiness, suspended for an eternity.

“I want to hold you, tonight,” he said, smoothing the hair at Laurent’s nape as he tilted his head upwards to meet his eyes. “I want to make love to you until the dawn comes. I want to remember every moment of it.”

Laurent shuddered and closed his eyes once more. “Yes,” he said.

Damen kissed him then, closing the small distance between them and opening Laurent’s perfect mouth to his. They kissed sweetly, in the way that made Laurent’s breath come short and fast, until need for air forced them to draw apart. Damen didn’t waste a moment, moving to kiss Laurent’s cheek and jaw and throat, stubble scraping against ivory skin, until Laurent drew him back to his lips with a hand fisted in dark curls.

They made their way over to the bed, progress impeded by the shedding of clothes. It took only a moment for Laurent to remove the lion’s head pin from Damen’s shoulder and unwind the belt that kept the Chiton’s shape at his waist, and a comparative lifetime for Damen to struggle his way through the first few laces at Laurent’s sleeve, before impatience drove him to take the garment between his hands and simply rip it apart.

“I was fond of that jacket, you giant animal,” Laurent said, but his voice was filled with laughter as Damen turned his brutish strength to the other sleeve.

When they were both bare, Damen lay Laurent back against the rich red sheets, kissing his way from lips to throat to navel until he took Laurent’s slowly stirring length into his mouth. He ran his tongue along a prominent vein and teased against the slit, tasting the sharp, salty tang of the liquid there, and swallowing it with relish. He used every skill he had acquired in his twenty-six years, and all the knowledge of Laurent he had come to learn in these past weeks, to drive Laurent, slowly but surely, to the brink. When that gorgeous, lithe body tensed beneath him, belly rippling and fists clenching in the sheets, he drew away, leaving the flushed length to bob in the cool night air, wet and slick with Damen’s spit.

“You are cruel,” Laurent panted, breathless, brow furrowed as he came back from the edge of release.

“There are still many things I wish to do to you tonight, Laurent,” Damen said, and propped himself up on his hands to lean over him. “I would not wish to end this prematurely.” He captured his lips again, sharing the salty taste of Laurent’s pleasure between them. Laurent licked into his mouth, shocking a groan out of Damen at the act.

“We are both young, I am sure it won’t be an inconvenience.”

Damen smiled against his lips, entertaining the idea, imagining how it could be. “If that is what you wish,” he said.

They kissed until Laurent grew impatient and began to grind his hips upwards, rubbing his aching cock against Damen’s stomach. “Fuck me,” he hissed, drawing Damen’s bottom lip into his mouth and biting down gently. Damen’s cock jumped at the slight sting.

“No,” he said. “I will make love to you.”

Laurent rolled his eyes, but the soft blush on his cheeks betrayed his pleasure, and Damen was helpless but to kiss him again.

Oil was pressed into his hands, despite their lips never parting, and Damen did not question it. He coated his fingers generously, smirking at the scent of orange blossoms that wafted from the bottle, Laurent’s favorite.

“How do you want me?” Laurent asked.

“I want to look on your face,” Damen said, nuzzling into his mussed hair. “I want to watch you come apart.”

Laurent shivered against him, and his legs fell apart to let Damen between them. Short work was made of the first two fingers, with Laurent relaxed and well accustomed to the now familiar stretch. With gentle coaxing, a third was permitted, and soon Laurent was grinding down to Damen’s gentle, probing thrusts, urging him deeper until a particular angle caught against the coil of nerves inside him, pulling a gasp from his lips.

“I’m ready,” Laurent said, and Damen did not make him wait any longer.

He oiled himself, and drew Laurent’s legs around him, calves settling into his lower back. Laurent was folded in on himself, almost bent in half. He used the closeness to draw Damen down again. Damen kissed him as he guided his length to Laurent’s entrance and pushed in.

Laurent gasped into his mouth, lips going slack and brow furrowing at the stretch. Damen turned to kiss his jaw and neck, to suck bruises onto the pale flesh there. He had never been with a partner upon whom the marks showed like they did on Laurent’s ivory skin. It was remarkable.

When all of himself was pressed inside, Damen stilled. The closeness was intoxicating. There was no other feeling in the world like being deep inside Laurent. His breath caught on a groan, and he turned his face in the crook of Laurent’s neck, breathing in the scent of him.

“Laurent,” he said, a whispered shatter.

“Damen,” Laurent replied, and his breathlessness was exquisite. “Please.”

Damen started slow and steady, his thrusts timed to the drumming beat of his heart, in and out relentlessly. Laurent shivered and gasped, heels digging into Damen’s back to try and force him even deeper. He was never vocal, it was not how he was, but the way his breath hitched, the way small sounds were permitted from his lips almost accidentally, it was the most honest and humbling thing Damen had ever witnessed. He couldn’t imagine it being any other way, couldn’t want to.

The way he closed his eyes as pleasure overwhelmed him, the way his brow furrowed in almost intense concentration, Damen had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He was a work of art, a living piece of perfection, not even the greatest artists from Vask to Isthima could hope to do his likeness justice. And that mind of his, cutting and sharp and dangerously clever, fighting against the desire to give in to the pure physicality of their lovemaking, to surrender to feeling and touch and abandon all thought and defense against it. It was always a struggle for him, even now, but the way he trembled in Damen’s arms, the way he arched his back and dragged his nails across the scarred flesh of Damen’s shoulders, he was trying. He wanted this, with Damen.

The thought was too much.

He felt delirious as pleasure built from within, coiling in his abdomen and suffusing throughout his entire body. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t lose this.”

Laurent opened his eyes, the blue of them a shock against the red of the sheets. The openness of them, the honest ache of need and despair, embroiled in pleasure but subsumed with the thought that their time was running out, was too much. Damen’s face crumpled, and he pressed his forehead to Laurent’s chest, his movements stilling as he held Laurent desperately.

They were as close as it was possible to be, limbs entangled and arms clutching, Damen buried deep and Laurent’s thighs clasping him in a vice. Damen fought to keep his breathing steady, biting down on his lip to quell the insistent urge to give voice to what he was feeling. He didn’t even know how to begin to put it into words.

“Damen,” Laurent said. His voice was so soft, so gentle, and he cupped a hand over the back of Damen’s head and stroked the silky curls there.

“I’m sorry,” Damen said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“You are impossible,” Laurent said, his chest shaking with a strained laugh. “Look at me.”

Damen raised his head, meeting Laurent’s eyes.

“You are acting as though this night will be our very last. Is there something I should be concerned about?”

How he could talk so rationally with his cock so hard against Damen’s stomach, while Damen was buried so deeply within him, was confounding. Damen could barely process thought beyond the maelstrom of lust and anguish that was consuming him.

“No. No, I—” Damen shook his head. “I’ve lost everything. Every one of my family is dead. You’re all I have left, if I lose you I—”

Laurent hushed him, cupping his cheek in his hand and rubbing a soothing thumb over his cheekbone. “You’re not going to lose me, Damianos.”

“You are leaving. I cannot protect you.”

“You think I survived eight years in my uncle’s court without learning how to defend myself? I am fully aware of the danger I am about to enter, Damen. There won’t be any unnecessary risk.”

“You say that,” Damen sighed, “but I know you. There are a thousand leagues between here and Arles. Anything could happen.”

Laurent let his head fall back against the pillow, breaking his line of sight with Damen. “You are worse than Auguste was.”

“Can we not talk about your brother while I am inside you?”

Laurent huffed out a breath, it might have been a laugh, before pushing Damen over and rolling on top of him. His thighs parted on either side of Damen’s hips, knees pressing against the bed for the leverage to ground himself down on Damen’s cock, still inside him. Damen gasped at the suddenness of the motion, the ease with which he was placed on his back and then teased. Laurent bent down over him, his hair falling in a golden curtain that shielded them from the rest of the world. Damen reached up to tuck it behind his ear and smiled fondly when his efforts were wasted as it fell back down again.

“Stop thinking. Whatever happens tomorrow, a week, or a month from now, we will face it when it comes. But, tonight, you have me. Tonight, I am yours. Stop wasting time worrying about hypotheticals, and fuck me.”

Damen laughed. Trust Laurent to dispense with reasonable caution when it inconvenienced him. “And I’m impossible,” he said.

“Utterly,” Laurent agreed.

It was Laurent who leant down to kiss him then, sweet and soft, almost timid in its languid quality. It was Damen who surged up to deepen it, a hand tangling in long blond hair to angle Laurent’s head.

It was Damen who moved first, gentle rocks of his hips, relying on the tensing muscles of his arse and thighs without proper leverage on the bed. Laurent hummed into his kiss as Damen’s length moved inside him, and thoughts of worry and fear were replaced with heady desire and intoxicating pleasure.

Laurent lifted himself up and down on Damen’s cock in slow, precise strokes, hands pressed to the center of Damen’s chest for balance. His head fell back as he focused on his pleasure, angling his hips so that Damen’s cock might brush his prostate on every pass. He was red and hard and leaking across Damen’s stomach, though he made no move to take himself in hand. Damen was overcome with the need to touch him, one last way to be closer.

Laurent shuddered as Damen’s fist closed around his cock, stroking in time with his unhurried thrusts. He made a small sound, somewhere between a gasp and moan, his mouth falling open and his breaths audibly heavier. He was close.

“I love you,” Damen said. Tenderness was easy here, now. Laurent’s eyes opened, met his, held.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.” Damen surged up, hands coming around Laurent’s back to hold him steady. He kissed his lips, his jaw, his neck, mouthing at his Adam’s apple around desperate breaths. “I love you,” he said, pressing it into skin. “I love you.”

Damen thrust up with renewed vigor, holding Laurent’s waist to help bring him down to meet him. Laurent clutched at his shoulder, the curls at his nape, biting at his jaw and nibbling at his ear as pleasure heightened.

Damen was so close, so desperately close, and he could feel in Laurent’s rigidness that he wasn’t far away, either. He slipped a hand in-between them to grasp Laurent’s length once more and tugged on him at the perfect speed and pressure to draw a drawn out a keen from Laurent’s mouth

“Damen— Damen,” he cried.

“Come for me, Laurent. Please… please.”

Laurent came silently, with every muscle in his body seizing in rapture. He arched his back, head falling between his shoulder blades, thrusting his hips up into Damen’s fist spasmodically. Damen cursed as he felt Laurent’s passage flutter around him, contracting in orgasm and nearly sending Damen off the edge himself. He held on, stroking Laurent through it as he shook with the aftershocks, until he hissed in overstimulation and Damen drew away.

He lifted the hand covered in Laurent’s seed to his lips and, meeting his eyes, licked the white fluid away.

Laurent watched, cheeks flushed and breath coming hard, utterly transfixed as Damen cleaned his hand with his tongue. The was something impossibly intimate about the act, consuming the spend of another after the deed was concluded. Even if he had disliked the salty, tangy taste, Damen would have ignored it just to see that look on Laurent’s face, that possessiveness, that satisfaction.

“You’re disgusting,” he said.

Damen shrugged. “I love the taste of you.”

Laurent’s flush deepened. “You didn’t finish.”

“No.”

“Are you waiting for an invitation?”

“Do I have one?”

Laurent blinked, held himself still, his eyes searching Damen’s face. He trailed a long, elegant finger along Damen’s cheek to his lips, pressing into them gently until Damen opened his mouth and allowed them inside. He watched as Damen nipped gently at the tip, tracing his tongue along the flat pad.

After a moment, Laurent drew them away, replacing them with his mouth. He kissed him gently, unhurriedly, before he pulled back a hairsbreadth distance, enough to say: “I love you.” It was the first time he had said it. “I want you to come inside me.”

Damen closed his eyes. He could never have imagined what those three words would do to him, what, coming from Laurent’s mouth, they would mean to him. He would have thought himself above the triviality of such an exhausted expression, he knew what existed between them without the need of words.

He was wrong.

They were everything.

He swallowed, embarrassed at the prick of moisture at his eyes, and leant forward once more into the crook of Laurent’s neck, to hide his face. Laurent’s arms came around him, one around his shoulders and the other twisted behind his head, cradling him and running soothing fingers through his hair.

“Damen,” Laurent said. “Please.”

Carefully, Damen turned them over, so that Laurent was pressed back into the mattress and he was held over him. He kissed him deeply, languidly, rocking incrementally inside him until the pleasure simmered throughout his entire body, leisurely, purposeless, simply sensation.

He forwent chasing his own pleasure for rousing Laurent once more, gently stimulating the that place inside him until oversensitivity tipped back over into desire, and he felt Laurent begin to harden against him. He kissed Laurent’s skin until he was red and raw from stubble burn and littered with a smattering of bruises, some deeper and richer than others, some only faint marks that would fade come morning. He kissed his lips until they were bruised and fell open as his breaths quickened. His gentle rocks turned to languid thrusts, which turned to insistent and relentless strokes.

Pleasure built up into a crescendo, blurring the world without into meaningless white noise. The universe began and ended in Laurent’s lips, all meaning and purpose reserved wholly for his glorious, wet heat, his little gasps and cries, his desperate hold on Damen. He could not begin to decipher where he ended and Laurent began. It didn’t matter.

When he came, it was buried deep within Laurent, his name pouring in chorus from his lips.

When he returned to himself enough to realize Laurent was still hard and panting in need, he slid out of him, gentle as he could be, and crawled down the bed until he was kneeling by Laurent’s feet. When he took him into his mouth, when he tasted him and felt his weight on his tongue, Damen had never known a bliss like it. He relaxed his throat and took him down the to the hilt, hand splayed across his abdomen to keep the jerk of his hips still.

Laurent came apart beneath him in a handful of moments, spilling into his mouth as he swallowed around him, throat working his length. His back arched more gracefully than the most skilled of pets, more beautifully than any pleasure slave.

He was beauty personified, and Damen was utterly lost.

It took Laurent long moments to calm his breathing and regain cognizant thought. He turned his face into Damen’s chest, hand splayed over his heart, feet tangling with Damen’s in the sheets.

They were quiet for a long time, simply listening to the sound of each other’s breathing, savoring these moments that they had together. It was easy, to simply exist like this.

“You said, before, that I was worse than Auguste,” Damen said. He brought a hand up to cradle the back of Laurent’s head, stroking the soft hair there almost comfortingly.

He did not know if this was the time or place for such weighty thoughts, but he was curious about what Laurent had meant when he said that. He was curious about Auguste, about who he had been. He must have been a fine man for Laurent to have loved him so fiercely.

“Yes. You can be,” Laurent said. There was no hesitance in his reply. Damen took it as permission to press on.

“Tell me about him.”

Laurent rolled over onto his back, out of Damen’s embrace. Damen turned on his side and propped his head up on his hand, so that he could look at him.

Laurent’s eyes were open, and he was staring up at the canopy above them. His face was expressionless, his breathing even, and there was no tension held in his body, but Damen could sense something was amiss.

“You don’t have to.”

“No I—” Laurent paused, frowned. “I want to tell you about him. He was my brother and he was—is—important to me. As you are important to me…” he trailed off. “He would have liked you. I’ve said that before, haven’t I?”

Damen smiled. “You have.”

“You were both ridiculously large, and loved swinging about a sword more than using your brain. He was kind, like you, in that infuriatingly noble way. And he worried, constantly, especially after mother died.”

Damen laid his hand on Laurent’s stomach, idly stroking the smooth skin there with his finger and listening to Laurent talk, drinking up every word. “He loved you,” Damen said.

“He did.”

“And you loved him.”

“More than anything.” His hand moved to cover Damen’s, his fingers slotting in-between and holding tight.

“You miss him,” Damen said, quietly.

“Yes. All the time. It is a constant ache,” he turned his face away. “Though it has lessened somewhat, in these past months.”

Damen nodded, drawing in a deep breath to try and relieve some of the pressure in his chest. “I am sorry. Laurent, I will always be sorry.”

“I know,” Laurent said quietly. “It was him or you. I know how these things work.”

“You didn’t deserve what happened. To lose your brother, or anything that came after. I am sorry for the part I played.”

Laurent closed his eyes, his jaw tense. The hand clutching Damen’s squeezed harder. “I don’t want to talk about that tonight.”

“Of course,” Damen said. “I’m sorry.”

Laurent was silent for a moment, his breathing steady and even. Damen watched him, the way the glow of the candle cast a golden hue over his skin, deepening the colour of his hair from whipped butter to precious gold. He caressed the back of Laurent’s hand with his thumb, a soothing motion.

Finally, Laurent spoke again. “Can I—” he paused, then pressed his face into Damen’s shoulder. “Can I tell you a story about him?”

Damen rolled over onto his back, drawing Laurent with him so Laurent lay half on top, head cushioned on Damen’s chest. “Of course,” he said. “I would know anything you wish to tell me.”

Laurent nodded, and traced circles around one of Damen’s nipples, innocuous and aimless and innocent in its intent.

“Once, on my tenth birthday, we snuck out of the palace and went riding in one of the fields near Chastillon. We ran until the horse tired, and then we sat underneath the stars. I’d been studying astronomy at that time, and he sat and listened to me point out constellations for hours.” Damen could feel his smile against his skin. “We stayed there until the sun came up and the patrol found us. Father was enraged. We were both forbidden from riding for a month, but every year after, we did it again.”

Damen smiled, picturing a young Laurent with his older brother, riding recklessly through starry fields, laughing and crowing with the joy only a child ever knows.

“I’ll take you there one day,” Laurent said, quieter, looking up at Damen’s face. Damen’s heart ached at the honesty there, the reserved hopefulness. “There’s a hill behind the castle that you can see the palace from, if the night is dark enough. And the stars, you’ve never seen so many stars.”

“I’d like that,” Damen said.

Laurent talked for hours, until the first light of morning began to creep in through the open doors and, with it, the knowledge that they only had a short time left. With a desperate franticness that threatened to shatter Damen apart, they made love again, slow and gentle, as close to each other as it was possible to be. When it was over, they lay tangled together, spent and exhausted, breath coming hard and fast though their lips still pressed together in lazy kisses.

They had stayed there until the sun rose into the sky, until the sound of the palace awakening shattered the quiet, and with it the desperate fantasy that time would stop and morning would never come.

He stroked Laurent's hair reverently, peppering kisses on his cheeks, his nose, his forehead and lips. Damen had tried to commit every one to memory, to cling to them like a man drowning.

When the time had come for Laurent to dress, he fetched his finest riding leathers and, with a certain gaze, turned to Damen. "Attend me," he said, and Damen did.

It was easy now to tie the laces at Laurent’s sleeves and front, to kneel and help him into the leather riding boots, to tie them and press a kiss to his ankle. It was easier still to stand behind Laurent before the gilded looking glass, brushing his long, smooth hair, and braiding it carefully behind his back.

They had said their goodbyes in their chambers, needing the privacy to simply embrace each other away from the eyes of others. Damen drew Laurent into his arms, burying his face into his soft, golden hair, inhaling his scent deeply. Lavender with a hint of orange blossom. His favorite soap.

“Nothing on this earth will keep me from you, when this is over,” Damen said.

Laurent said nothing, but he held Damen closer, head pressed to chest, ear against his heart, hands clutching tightly around his waist. 

After a time, Laurent pulled back to look up at Damen's face, slipping from the arms that held him, and placing a hand on Damen’s cheek, cradling it gently as though he were afraid his touch might be rejected. Damen placed his hand over Laurent’s and clutched it tightly, closing his eyes.

“I am not good at farewells, Damen,” Laurent said, his voice unwavering.

“This is not a farewell,” Damen said, pressing a kiss to his palm. “Don’t say goodbye. I will see you soon. When the time comes, I will burn Elysian itself to be at your side once more.”

Laurent’s eyes crinkled in amusement then, as they sometimes did when Damen did something foolishly endearing. He smoothed his hand over Damen’s face and tucked a curl behind one ear. “Very well, Damianos. I will hold you to that.”

“I am counting on it,” Damen said. He was not embarrassed at the tightness of his voice, subtle as it was.

With a sense of finality to his expression, Laurent made to pull away. Damen, however, wasn’t ready to let him go, and caught the hand that had cradled his cheek so softly and used it to draw Laurent back to him. He needed this, this one last embrace. He couldn't let him go without it. 

He held Laurent’s slighter body against his, he cradled his face so gently in his large, brown hands and brought their foreheads together. He felt the deep sigh of Laurent’s breath fall across his face.

“Damen…”

“Please, let me have this,” he all but begged.

He could sense a moment of hesitation in Laurent before the slight resistance in his body gave, and he allowed himself to melt against Damen, returning his embrace. His next sigh came out a little softer, a little shakier than the first, and Damen’s heart ached.

Eventually Laurent drew back, and Damen prepared himself for the devastating loss. Instead, he felt a soft pressure against his lips. Laurent’s kiss was light, almost chaste. Damen, with a sound that seemed half a sob, half a groan, pressed into it, the hands cradling Laurent’s jaw curling into his long, golden hair, angling his head as he deepened their kiss, opening his mouth beneath Laurent’s and seeking entry with his tongue. Laurent complied immediately, hands gripping Damen’s naked waist and tugging him forward. 

Of course, it was Laurent who had to end it. He pressed a final, lingering kiss against Damen’s mouth before pulling away the slightest distance. He breathed then, his eyes remaining closed, brow furrowed as he struggled with something within himself.

Damen looked at him, studied every inch of him, his cold and breathtaking beauty. There were so many things he still wanted to say, so many thousands of words that could not hope to scratch the surface of the depth of what he felt. In that moment, Damen could hardly breathe for it.

Instead, with a final stroke of his perfect, pale cheek, Damen released him from his embrace and watched, his heart aching in his chest, as Laurent walked away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @exyking


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